"Before the CIA became the country's chief intelligence-gathering agency, the Office of Strategic Services worked worldwide to undermine the enemies of the United States during World War II. Though the OSS employed more than 24,000 Americans during the early 1940s, little has been known about the individual men and women who carried out the organization's secret missions.

Yesterday, the National Archives released nearly 750,000 pages of material contained in the OSS's previously secret personnel files, folders the CIA had blocked from public view until turning them over to archivists in College Park seven years ago. In them, the public can now get a glimpse into the wartime lives of those who served in the OSS, many of whom have been reluctant to share details of their secret missions.

Though some files contain but a few pages of payment records and promotions, others are filled with narratives of daring overseas feats and glowing appraisals of performance. Yellowed paper and hand-stamped pages evoke a nation at war when the world moved at a very different pace.

Fisher Howe, now 94, flipped through his personnel records yesterday and remembered his days as a special assistant to Gen. William J. Donovan, the OSS director. He reminisced about working in London, Corsica and in Ceylon -- now Sri Lanka -- where he trained agents for landings by sea.

"There were a lot of people working very hard in a very challenging time, and those people are here, in these records," Howe said." (Josh White, The Washington Post, Aug. 15, 2008)

Julia McWilliams (Julia Child)

At 30 years old, McWilliams transferred from the U.S. Office of War Information, where she was a typist, to the OSS in 1942, citing having "typed over 10,000 little white cards" as her reason for changing jobs. She worked as a file clerk in Washington and then as an assistant in the OSS director's office before earning a foreign posting in Ceylon, which is now Sri Lanka. In 1945 she transferred to China, where she was chief of registry in Chungking. McWilliams met her husband, Paul Child, while in the OSS, and after World War II they moved to Paris, where she attended Le Cordon Bleu cooking school, later becoming one of the most famous chefs in the world.

From a citation for the "Emblem of Meritorious Civilian Service," found in her 130-page OSS personnel file, covering her work from March 20 to Oct. 13, 1945, in China: "Through her resourcefulness, industry and sound judgement, the important work of registering, cataloguing and channeling a great volume of highly classified communications and documents was performed with exceptional speed and accuracy. This in addition to the accurate filing system devised and set up by Miss McWilliams facilitated the efficient functioning of all branches of the agency. Her drive and inherent cheerfulness, despite long hours of tedious work, served as a spur to greater effort for those working with her. Her achievements reflect great credit upon herself and the Armed Forces of the United States."

Allen W. Dulles

In 1941, at the age of 48, he was appointed to lead the New York office of the Coordinator of Information, a predecessor to the OSS. In November 1942, on an OSS mission, he was sent to Europe to take over wartime intelligence operations. According to declassified documents in his file, Dulles organized what became "the foremost unit for espionage in the annals of under-cover operations conducted in connection with the United States Army."

Dulles left the OSS and went back to practicing law in New York City before returning to intelligence work with the CIA. He became the CIA's director in 1953.

From a formerly secret document in Dulles's personnel file: "As early as August 1943 he warned that the enemy had set up an experimental laboratory at Peenemunde, northern Germany, for the testing of a so-called rocket bomb. Only after repeated insistence on Mr. Dulles' part was the British Air Ministry convinced that such experiments were actually in progress, and on pin points furnished by him, the RAF carried out the first important raid on Peenemunde two weeks later. . . . Mr. Dulles intercepted the orders for the scuttling of the French fleet at Toulon and reported this information promptly to the proper services. Well in advance of the operation, he reported information from a high source, to the effect that the Italian fleet could be depended upon to surrender a large part of its vessels."

John Hamilton (Sterling Hayden)

He left nine years of seafaring and his early Hollywood acting career to join the Marine Corps and the OSS under the assumed name of John Hamilton in 1941. His mastery of the seas -- he was first mate on a schooner voyage around the world in 1936 and captained a ship from Gloucester, Mass., to Tahiti in 1939 -- led OSS officials to have him set up secret shipping operations based in Italy. He was attacked by the Germans and operated behind enemy lines in Croatia.

After receiving the Silver Star, Hayden returned to the silver screen. In 1956, he had the lead role in "The Killing," in which he played an ex-convict plotting a racetrack heist; he portrayed a one-star general in "Dr. Strangelove" in 1964; and he was a corrupt policeman in "The Godfather" in 1972.

From a promotion recommendation for Hayden in April 1944, contained in the roughly 85 pages of his OSS file: "Lt. Hamilton conducted a reconnaissance of the Dalmation Islands to plot alternate shipping routes in event of German invasion, which then was starting. He was strafed by German planes, and . . . conducted himself in a brave manner."

From a rating record, Dec. 21, 1944: "He is essentially a seaman and has demonstrated great skill in handling small vessels on clandestine missions along the Dalmation coast. He has great courage and has shown an almost reckless disregard of his own life where duty is involved."

Arthur J. Goldberg

Before he was secretary of labor under President John F. Kennedy and ambassador to the United Nations in the late 1960s, Goldberg was chief of the OSS Labor Desk. A civilian lawyer, Goldberg converted into an Army officer in 1943 so he could better interact with the military, and he was assigned to the Secret Intelligence Branch by William J. Donovan, then OSS director. Goldberg was ordered to infiltrate the underground labor movements in Europe. According to his OSS file, Goldberg was sent to "maintain relationships with various resistance groups operating in occupied countries to obtain information and to encourage and foment resistance."

Goldberg was so successful that Donovan wanted him returned to civilian status.

From the 46 pages of his OSS personnel file: "From time to time, but not continuously, the Director will require Major Goldberg, as a civilian, to perform certain missions on his behalf which may require his being sent to neutral countries such as Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland for secret intelligence activities involving Major Goldberg's special knowledge and skill of the European labor movement and intelligence contacts that pertain thereto. The Director, in view of these facts, requests Major Goldberg be placed on inactive status so that he can thereupon assume his former status as a civilian employee of OSS, available to perform the missions which the Director may from time to time have in contemplation for him."